Going Loudly into That Good Night: Joel McDurmon in Full Meltdown Mode

Any hunter or soldier will tell you that the most dangerous enemy is oftentimes one in its death throes. And nowhere has this been demonstrated more starkly as the good ship American Vision sails into the gaping maw of the whirlpool’s vortex under the tutelage of its mad Ahab, Joel McDurmon. The man has gone full rabid, and if his disgustingly opportunistic transmogrification of AV into a haven for black militants and white fellow travelers collapses that once-august organization into Chapter 11, he’s going to make damn good and sure he takes down as many of his betters with him as he can. This is what happens when you send a spoiled child out to do a man’s job.

McDurr, to put it bluntly, is an utter failure. This ward of Gary North’s, suffering from a cringeworthy midlife crisis (probably with all the failures of libido that implies) and an utter lack of business acumen, in a desperate attempt to bring relevance back to his rapidly ossifying ministry, thought it would be a neat-o keen idea to slander a couple of ‘racists’, as that utterly accursed subset of humanity is devoid of any consideration of fundamental decency, anyway. To that ignoble end, he set his sights on two upstanding men: first, John Weaver, a Reformed Baptist pastor, long-time head of Freedom Ministries, and advocate of the Old Confederacy. If one needed further proof of his credentials, the first Google entry that appears while searching his name is the dossier the Southern Poverty Law Center keeps on him. The second shibboleth is Peter Hammond, a South African pastor who had dedicated his life to bringing the Gospel to black Africans in some of the continent’s most forbidding danger zones, notably South Sudan. (One of the most valuable insights he has learned over the years? Post-conversion, blacks retain their tribal identities with even more ferocity than before, contrary to the assurances of the cosmopolitan Church that this cannot possibly be the case.) Both are stalwart opponents of interracial marriage, and McDurr absolutely cannot stomach that, cloaking his lust for strange flesh under a veil of overbearing ‘we are all image-bearers of Jesus’ platitudes as he does. Thus, he saw fit to pen a disgraceful smear job on both men, calling for their excommunication not just from the Church but from any and every means for them to attain a livelihood. This, despite the fact that American Vision had previously hosted guest columns from both before Sheriff McDurr ascended to the Big Chair with an agenda in one holster and a father-in-law’s bankroll in the other.

And my goodness, but didn’t his acolytes take up the banner, screech ‘let’s follow the Tattooed Lady wherever he shall go!’, and fall upon the duo like a passel of rats making a beeline for the chocolate cake on the counter? Every half-baked rumor and innuendo that debased man can dream up has been lobbed Weaver’s and Hammond’s way in the hope that if enough dung is thrown against the wall, some of it is bound to stick. Therein is the wisdom of the words of Christ documented (Matt. 18:15): ‘Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.’ McDurr sleazily ignored this admonition altogether in favor of bombastic grandstanding, that he might receive the esteem of men. Such are those who replace Jesus with Moses Hess as your small-l lord and smaller-s savior. Both Weaver and Hammond, not likely to take guff from a miserable-spirited upstart who will never attain as much for the Kingdom in his worthless life as both men have done just today, offered rebuttals in their defence (Weaver’s here and Hammond’s here) that are both remarkable for the devastation they wreak upon McDurr’s delusions of theology while still retaining the high road.1 McDurr offered rebuttals to their rebuttals (here and here) that merely rehash his previous ad hominem insulting phrases (‘legalist’, ‘Christian Identity’, etc.) and that succeed only in making him look even more carping and petty than he already did. The Pharisees have never been world-renowned for their quick wit.

At this point one must really take a step back and gape in amazement at McDurr’s sheer stultifying managerial incompetence. As AV’s original devoted base walks away from the newly christened ‘American Tunnelvision’ in disgust (and in droves), with the result that the organization is now perpetually one missed donor check away from insolvency, why would McDurr consider this the best time to embark upon a very personal vendetta for all the world to behold, considering the parsimony of his newly feted black supporters? And no two ways about it: he is the very embodiment of the Peter principle. There’s more to the story here than a mere rich kid making a huge mess of the first big responsibility he’s ever had, though. I believe that in striving to be the first mere mortal ever to serve God and mammon simultaneously (not necessarily in that order), McDurr is on the verge of a complete nervous collapse. His megalomaniac demeanor suggests he views himself as a modern-day Jehu, roaring out bellicose demands from his chariot that we all witness his zeal for the Lord – while handing the reins over to Jehonadab, who is driving pell-mell towards a cliff without the master taking the slightest heed. Even McDurr’s responses to his yes-men have a shrill edge to them anymore. An innocent query asking for a clarification of his views is likely to be met with a shrieked variation of ‘DIDN’T YOU READ MY ARTICLE????!!!!!’ Seemingly at random, he is wont to stuff threads with some more gratuitous very low digs at whoever’s in his rabid crosshairs that day. McDurr has long been a pathological liar, but in his rapidly decaying emotional state he can’t slather over his falsehoods with the slick condescension he used to be able to pull off with such ease. Witness his breathtakingly clumsy attempt to cover his ass in this exchange, when a former supporter calls him out on one of his lies:

‘Oh that. Right.’ A sad epitaph for American Vision, but at the same time a most apt one.

And do you want to know something? I love to witness McDurr’s swift degeneration before our very eyes. If he’s headed towards a straitjacket and a rubber room, I maintain it is every Christian’s duty to speed him on his way to that just end, that perchance he might finally learn a thing or two about humility.

Too harsh, you say? I beg to differ. This fiend is seriously out of control. He’s not satisfied with dragging Weaver’s and Hammond’s names through the mud. In his rebuttal to Hammond, he saw fit to besmear another Christian man who operates a blog dedicated to upholding the memory of Rushdoony, deriding his ‘openly racist views’ and expecting servile gratitude from this fellow for involuntarily branding him with this most scarlet of letters. (In the interests of protecting his family, he will remain nameless here. Click on the Hammond rebuttal for full details.) And what are we to make of one of his most recent commentaries, wherein he praises Karl Marx for having the foresight to call out the reactionary defenders of the status quo of his day, while lamenting his lack of a Christian worldview in doing so – thus setting the stage nicely for AV’s future conversion into a full-fledged proponent of ‘Christian’ socialism? These are the words and actions of one actively engaged in simony, and counting on the gullibility of suburban Millennial neo-reconstructionist edgelords not to notice this crucial point while they take up his cudgels for him.

Gentle reader: can you allow these malicious sins to go unchallenged? Are we to allow this boorish son of a leprous goat and an inbred cat free rein to continue on his rampage, or is it time to call him to account on his murderous heterodoxy, early and often? Jesus said, “Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” It’s way past time for McDurr to learn that this proclamation is true. Please bombard him with your righteous displeasure everywhere he stinks up the internet with his odious presence. And please pray daily for American Vision’s bankruptcy.

I will leave you with a selection of ‘McDurr Coffee’ memes. Please feel free to share them. He has one of the thinnest skins for mockery I have ever witnessed, and these are guaranteed to cut to the quick.

Footnotes

If there is a flaw to be detected in these responses, it is that both argue from the position that opposition to miscegenation amounts to a ‘freedom of conscience’ issue, rather than from a direct scriptural tenet. The latter position, being supported with ample biblical documentation, would have been a considerably more forceful position to take. Still, as Pastor Weaver notes in his response: ‘There are no perfect Christians in this life.’ ↩

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Faith & Heritage is a consortium of Christian writers from a traditionalist perspective. F&H features a diverse range of opinions among its writers, and any particular opinion expressed is not necessarily indicative of universal agreement among F&H admins or writers.

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Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. - Deuteronomy 32:7-8